Horror Show

by Greg Kihn

  Could they be trusted? Would they understand? He found himself weighing each individual case. His eyes traveled the room, clicking off the players. Luboff and Chet? No problem. Bugmier the fruitcake? Probably. Kingston? Maybe. The flunkies? Yeah, not impossible.

  No one would ever know.

  Buzzy was in his face, hissing and swearing, doing the hard sell. He could tell that Landis was listening. He knew he was pushing all the right buttons. Buzzy Haller was no fool, but he was dangerously crazy. “I swear, we could make horror history, man. It’s right here under our noses. And it won’t cost a goddamn cent.”

  Landis found himself nodding, agreeing.

  No one would ever know.

  19

  Landis waved. The crew looked over at him, ready to get back to work. Cigarettes were crushed out; a few murmurs rose in the echo walled chamber. People were beginning to feel strange being in here, working in close proximity with all those dead bodies. It gave them the creeps. They had enjoyed their short break, talking nervously among themselves to chase the weirdness.

  Landis gave them a big surprise.

  “We’re gonna take five, people!” he shouted. He fished in his pockets for a set of keys and threw them to Neil. “Here, I’ve got a cooler full of beer in my trunk. Let everybody have some. Save me and Buzz a couple, okay?”

  The crew was already moving for the door. That’s how anxious they were to get out of this place, Landis noted. Chet walked over to him and said, “What’s up, boss? I’ve never known you to call a break in mid shoot. Something wrong?”

  Landis shook his head. “Me and Buzzy have a technical problem we want to work out. It’s no big deal, we just need a few minutes. Go have a beer with the rest of them.”

  “That’s another thing, I’ve never known you to give away free beer either.”

  “Enjoy it while you can,” Landis said, deep in thought. His eyes were far away. Chet didn’t need to be told twice. He was gone in a flash.

  As soon as they were alone, Buzzy went to work on the drawers holding the corpses. In truth, he didn’t even need a screwdriver to get them open. All he had to do was unlatch them. Landis couldn’t believe that they weren’t locked.

  “Who would steal a corpse?” Buzzy asked.

  “I don’t know. Somebody like us?” Landis deadpanned.

  Buzzy didn’t laugh. He was too busy pulling out the first drawer; it slid along a metal track, locking when fully extended. The cold and the smell hit them like a sledgehammer. Like a butcher shop, like raw meat. Behind that was a strong disinfectant aroma, bad enough to make a man gag. The combination was nauseating. Buzzy was too caught up in the moment to notice. He pulled back the sheet and gasped.

  It was a woman’s body, a bullet hole in her forehead. Her eyes were closed and severely sunken, as if her brains had been sucked out by the bullet. Buzzy pulled the sheet over her head and slid the drawer closed.

  He opened the next drawer. It was an old man, too wrinkly and prunelike to be of use to them. His face was screwed up like a shrunken head. “He must have died of constipation,” Buzzy cracked.

  Landis was over his shoulder, fascinated by the ghoulish game. “Try this one,” he said, pointing to the bottom drawer, marked number sixty-six.

  “Okay, stand back.”

  The bottom drawer screeched when they slid it open, its echo snapping off the tile walls. The smell from this one was much worse. Landis held his nose. “Jesus, this one’s ripe.”

  Buzzy pulled the sheet back. Landis reeled. It was the worst-looking body he had ever seen. “God knows what this guy died of,” Buzzy whispered, “but he looks like he’s been lying around for at least a week. Christ, look at the skin, man. It’s greenish. This one’s perfect. I couldn’t have made one up any better. It’s the right size and age, right condition, check out the bloating. I’m tellin’ ya, this one will scare the shit out of anybody.”

  There was a tag tied to his big toe which identified him as John Doe. In other words, name unknown.

  Landis looked into Buzzy’s face. There was a short silence, then, “What do we do?”

  Buzzy eyed the corpse. “We lift him out, put him on the slab, cover him up, and … shit, I don’t know. It’s your ball game then. I already did my part; you’re the director. Let’s block out a shot.”

  “But how—”

  Buzzy made a face. “I’ll have to manipulate him from behind,” he said softly. “Maybe I can rig up some wires or something. Here, give me a hand.”

  Landis hesitated. He looked down at the corpse and fought back a reflex to gag. He didn’t want to touch the thing.

  “Come on,” Buzzy hissed. “Shit, man. I’m not doin’ everything.”

  “Jesus,” Landis said, “I don’t know if I can go through with this.”

  “Sure you can,” Buzzy answered. “Just don’t think about it.”

  Landis had never touched a dead body before. He wondered if Buzzy had. Revulsion shuddered through him at the thought of it. That made two things he never wanted to touch in the past few days; first the tuning forks and now this. Of course, this was much worse.

  At least the tuning forks were solid, hard. This guy looked as soft and rotted as an old mattress. Landis fought back the nausea. There was a very real chance that he might throw up.

  Buzzy noticed Landis’s reticence and frowned. He said, “Look, I know this is no day at the beach, but consider something, okay? You move this corpse with me, you touch this dead fuckin’ decaying thing with your hands and move it over there on that slab, which is only ten feet away, and your life will change.”

  Landis stared into the dead man’s face.

  Buzzy continued, “Your life will change because you will have just made one of the greatest horror movies of all time, and you will have scared the shit out of millions of people all over the world.”

  Landis’s head came up and he locked eyes with Buzzy. There was a question there. “The world?”

  “Yeah, I said all over the world. Like Frankenstein or Dracula, this thing is gonna become a classic. It’s not just for those shitty drive-ins with their pathetic double features that we seem to live on. No. This one’s for all time, Woody.

  “It’s got that extra dimension that makes your skin crawl, and very few directors can do that. You’ve got to take a chance, roll the dice. You think these other directors would do it? Orson Welles? Tod Browning? You’re damn right they would. They’d do anything to make a movie great.”

  Landis looked back down at the corpse.

  “It’s right here in front of you,” Buzzy said. “Great men make great decisions. We’re gonna do it, man, we’re gonna make it happen. All you have to do is reach down and touch the dead flesh with me. That’s not so bad, is it? Shit, that dickhead coroner does it every day. You think he can do something we can’t do? It’s easy. Are you ready?”

  Landis was still. He said nothing.

  Buzzy’s voice dropped. “Touch it, Woody. Touch the dead flesh. Come on. It’s for art. You want greatness, don’t you? This guy’s your star; treat him like one.”

  With that, Buzzy leaned over and put his arms around the dead man’s back and lifted him out of the drawer.

  “Get his legs,” he mumbled. When Landis hesitated, Buzzy snapped, “Come on! The legs, damn it!”

  Rigor mortis had set in with a vengeance and made the dead man most uncooperative. Buzzy almost changed his mind about it, based on the fact that he would have a devil of a time animating the stiff limbs. But, some movement was possible, and as long as he could get the arms and hands to move, he was in business. The stench, disturbed now by the movement, was putrid, and caused both men to hold their breath.

  Landis got hold of the legs and hefted the dead man off the drawer. In the process, his hand fell off his chest and slid down by his side. It brushed Landis’s arm and sent gooseflesh crawling completely over his back and down his sides like an army of fire ants. He recalled Buzzy’s words, sung like a bad refrain, “Touch the dea
d flesh, Woody, touch the dead flesh.”

  Now that he had actually done it, and his warm, live skin made contact with the dead man’s hand, he realized how disgusting it was. Landis would remember that touch, that first fraction of a second contact, for the rest of his life.

  The flesh was cold. It chilled Landis to consider the temperature, like the inside of a refrigerator. It was also greasy, damp, almost oily. That must be from the putrefaction, he thought. The epidermis, being the first thing in contact with the air, probably begins to decay before the rest of the body. Landis shuddered at the thought.

  The oiliness was the outer layer of skin, now dead, beginning to rot. It fell away to the touch like the skin of an overripe tomato.

  They moved quickly, walking the dead man to the slab and laying him out. There was a stainless steel gurney nearby, but neither man had the idea to use it. They stepped away and breathed again. A curious deodorizing scent came off the body along with the smell of death. The coroner, evidently, had treated the dead man with an innocuous spray to minimize the overpowering aroma of a corpse in this condition. The flowery, totally inappropriate smell mixed with the stench of decay to form a new, bizarre combination that assailed their nostrils like a poison gas.

  Both men gagged and backpedaled.

  The slab itself was made of white enamel, grooved for the flow of liquids. Blood, Landis guessed. The dead man was laid out like a sleeping monster. Buzzy pulled a sheet over him and coughed.

  “Jesus, that’s bad!” he croaked. “I wonder where he keeps that spray?” It occurred to Landis that Buzzy knew about the spray, but he didn’t think that odd. Buzzy knew all kinds of weird stuff.

  As soon as the sheet had settled over the corpse’s face, Buzzy was off looking for the spray. “It’s gotta be around, within easy reach. It’s the one absolutely necessary thing here,” he said.

  He found it in a cabinet nearby and read the label. “‘For forensic use only’ Hmm, must be the good stuff.”

  Without waiting, he pulled back the sheet and sprayed the corpse from head to toe, then returned the shroud to its original position. At that moment, Landis heard footsteps. The crew was returning.

  Chet and Neil went right to the corpse and looked at Landis. “What’s this all about?” Neil demanded.

  Tonight, for the shoot, Neil had worn normal male clothes, and they gave him a modicum of respectability. At least people weren’t laughing outright at him. His question was delivered firmly and deserved an answer.

  Landis had been considering what he would tell them when they returned. It was time for him to explain.

  “Buzzy had an idea, and I thought it was good.”

  He paused, measuring the disbelief on their faces. Then proceeded cautiously.

  “We’re gonna use one of the corpses in the movie.”

  They all stared. Neil’s jaw dropped.

  “One of the real corpses?”

  Landis nodded.

  “You can’t do that! It’s … it’s … it’s against the law.”

  “So is sodomy,” Buzzy said from behind Landis. “It doesn’t matter. Nobody will ever know.”

  Neil slapped his hand against the unoccupied gurney. “Nobody will ever know? Are you crazy? How are you gonna keep this a secret? Already, everyone in this room knows.” He gestured around him.

  Landis nodded. “Yeah, but I think that everybody here is trustworthy enough and loyal enough to keep a secret. Especially if they ever want to work for me again.” He looked around the room at their faces.

  “Now, Buzzy here thinks that by using this corpse in the movie, it will make it a hit, and I happen to agree. It might put this film, and everyone in it, in the horror hall of fame. It’s a gamble, I know, and it’s a radical idea, but, if we work together and pull it off, well … we’ll be making cinematic history, and better yet, we’ll all make money.”

  Chet stepped forward. “How will I make money?” he asked.

  “Your career will take off if you do a hit movie, especially one with unbelievable special effects. I’ll hire you again, for sure. If I make money, you make money.”

  Chet laughed. “That’s horseshit. My career is what it is. If I was working at MGM, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “Exactly. None of you people here are working,” Landis said with conviction. “That’s why I hired you. None of you can afford a scandal; all of you need the work desperately. Do this for me. Do this one thing for me, and I’ll see to it that each and every one of you gets a bonus when the film comes out. That’s fair, isn’t it?”

  Silence.

  “How much of a bonus?” Chet asked.

  Landis was ready for that. “I can’t give you a figure right now, maybe a percentage of the profits over a certain amount, maybe points, I don’t know. Whatever it is, I will make sure that you’re all happy.”

  Neil snorted. “You’re asking us to trust you.”

  “Yeah,” Landis said, “I am.”

  There was a titter of laughter through the room. It echoed sadly off the tile walls and settled on them all like the sheet had settled on the face of the nameless corpse. The sound trailed off, and the room became quiet again.

  “It’s a sick fuckin’ world when we have to trust the likes of you,” Chet grumbled. Landis wondered how he had reconciled filming Devila the other night. That wasn’t exactly normal either. He hadn’t had a problem then, had he? Landis realized that he was being shaken down for more money, pure and simple. He respected that in a man. It was a God-given right. Chet was all right—he could be read perfectly.

  “Nobody will ever know,” Landis repeated.

  “I’ll know,” Neil answered. The words hung in the air.

  Landis turned to Neil. “Look, anybody who doesn’t want to do this can leave now. We’ll make it without him. I just thought that I could count on you guys,” he said softly.

  Jonathon came forward and approached the corpse. He peeked under the sheet and looked at Landis. “This is genius!” he said dramatically.

  Buzzy smiled. “We have a winner!”

  “Yes,” Luboff continued, looking at the others. “It’s genius, I say! This corpse is horrible, the worst thing I’ve ever seen. If you have it in the movie, it will scare everyone! Isn’t that what a horror movie is supposed to do? Here we have a chance to do something brilliant, something truly grotesque, because of this man’s vision.” He pointed at Landis. “And you doubt him?”

  Luboff pulled the sheet away suddenly, dramatically, like a matador, revealing the dead man in all his hideous glory.

  “Look upon him! Look upon the face of death!” There were gasps. “He is magnificent! Let our young filmmaker create a masterpiece of horror, let him use the elements at his disposal, let him transcend this art form and make a statement that will live”—he paused and took a breath—“forever.”

  Luboff had spoken. The endorsement had come from such a strange quarter that it had taken them all off guard. If any one of them had the credibility to speak about art, it was Luboff. His speech was persuasive. It galvanized their feelings and directed their thinking away from the petty problems of impropriety and into the larger picture of art and substance.

  Landis looked at their faces. He could see them all beginning to change their minds. Buzzy was lighting another cigarette and stealing a glance at Landis. Through the smoke he could see the faint outline of a smile.

  “All right,” Chet said. “I’ll do it.”

  “Good,” Luboff said, and stood by him. “Who else is a man?”

  “I’m in,” said Beatnik Fred. He had his own reasons to participate in history. He was a seeker of sensations, of experiences. This was, by far, the most bizarre, unorthodox thing he had ever heard of, and he wanted to be a part of it.

  “Me too,” chimed assistant cameraman Bob and Phil the gofer. They were following Fred’s lead.

  “Think about what you’re doing,” whined Neil. “It’s sick!”

  Jonathon raised his hand. “Galileo was a
heretic, Van Gogh was mad. It’s nothing new—we have to rise above such things.”

  “What about this poor man’s family?” Neil pleaded.

  “What family?” Buzzy pointed out, “He’s a John Doe, a no-name. I’d say he was probably a drifter. Chances are he had no home. This could be his greatest triumph. Are you gonna deny this poor son of a bitch his big chance to star in a movie after he’s dead? If you ask me, it’s an honor.”

  Landis looked at Tad. “Tad, you’re an important part of this. I want you to say yes. I’ve done a lot for you, made you a star, developed your career, I think you owe it to me to do this one favor. I’ve never asked you to do anything else, have I?”

  Tad was about to say that he made him take Lana Wills to the Halloween party instead of his girlfriend, Becky Sears, but he held his tongue. It was not the time. Landis was right. He’d done so much for Tad. Tad basically owed him his career. Tad nodded and stepped forward, taking his place next to Beatnik Fred and Chet.

  “I don’t want to,” Tad explained to Neil, “but I’ve got to, you understand.”

  Neil saw that everyone was against him. Hurt and anger welled up in his eyes, and he balled his fists. Landis thought he was going to cry. Instead, he stormed out of the room.

  Landis went after him.

  Tad started to follow, but Buzzy grabbed his arm. “Let ’em go,” he said quietly.

  Landis caught up with Neil near the sleeping night watchman. He put a hand on his shoulder and spun him around. “Neil, hey, slow down, man. Look, I can understand how you’re feeling. Shit, I feel the same way. It’s disgusting. But, think about it. Won’t it make this movie unforgettable?”

  Neil had a tear in his eye, just one, and it clung to his eyelash valiantly, trying not to fall. He looked into Landis’s face and said, “It’s wrong, Landis. It’s so wrong.”

  Landis put his other hand on Neil’s other shoulder and held him in front of him. He shook those shoulders and spoke with as much sincerity as he could muster.

  “I know it’s wrong But, shit, Neil. Listen. We don’t have that many chances left. We either deliver a winner this time out or we can just about forget about making another movie. Think about it.